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Safety Surfeit

Children should not be shielded from contact sports for fear of injury

February 18 2014, 12:01am, The Times

Risk is part of life. The task of civilised societies is to manage it rather than — impossibly, even if it were desirable — to dispel it.

That principle is being tested in modern attitudes to sporting activities. Parents, it emerges, are wary of allowing their children to play rugby or hockey, or go horseriding. The evidence is in a poll of parents of children aged from 3 to 16. Schools are responding to these apprehensions and their own fears of legal action by replacing these activities with non-contact sports. It is a trend that does neither children nor wider society any favours.

Ensuring the safety of children is every parent’s duty, as it is of schools and other institutions that act in loco parentis.…

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